CornerCube's 2019 NBA Team of The Year Award!

The Economist, a weekly world news periodical, every December reveals its “Country of the Year.” Now the countries picked are not always world powers or economic tycoons. The Economist basis its choosing off of “a country, of any size, that has changed notably for the better in the past 12 months, or made the world brighter.” The good workers at CornerCube have decided that they would like to do something similar to The Economist’s “Country of the Year,” but with an NBA team instead. Therefore, this article shall be known as the “Cornercube’s NBA Team of the Year Award.”

That’s right. This is not just some paltry recognition article but rather an award that an NBA team can hoist up alongside its championship banners in their arena’s rafters. There is no doubt that the New York Knicks’ ludicrous, cocaine infused owner, who was made rich from his father, James Dolan, will, after only reading these two short paragraphs believe that his meaningless franchise has a snow ball’s chance in Hell at winning the first CCNTOTYA (“ConerCube NBA Team of The Year Award.”).  That’s right; we believe this award is so deserving that it rightly earns its own abbreviations.  So, before James Dolan indulges in a celebratory line of coke, let it be known that the deplorable New York Knicks did NOT win the CCNTOTYA.

In fact, it should be known that there are actual and legitimate requirements to be considered a potential CCNTOTYA finalist. The first requirement is that a team must have made the playoffs. The NBA permits the top eight teams from each conference to enter that year’s playoff series. Therefore, the first requirement eliminates fourteen teams from being even initially considered.  Admittedly one qualm I do have with the NBA playoff format is the fact that it allows more than half the league to be in the playoffs. Sixteen teams out of a 30-team league is far too many. An eight seed, the lowest seed, has only upset a one seed five times and it has become even rarer after the NBA moved from best out of five game series to be best out of seven for first round games.

The second requirements is that for a team to be a finalist it must have won more games in that year’s regular season than it had lost. It is understandable to feel that this second requirement is both repetitive and frivolous. The logical thinking goes is that if a team made the playoffs, it should have won more games than it lost. However, because the NBA permits more than half its league to be in its playoffs and the fact that the NBA lacks plurality throughout its league, there are typically a few teams that are in the playoffs but with losing or .500 records. Ironically and thankfully, there was only one playoff team who was unable to earn a winning record – Detroit Pistons. Below are this year’s finalists:

2019 CCNTOTYA Finalists (Based off Requirements 1 & 2)
Western Conference	Eastern Conference
Golden State Warriors	Milwaukee Bucks
Denver Nuggets	Toronto Raptors
Portland Trailblazers	Philadelphia 76ers
Houston Rockets	Boston Celtics
Utah Jazz	Indiana Pacers
Oklahoma City Thunder	Brooklyn Nets
San Antonio Spurs	Orlando Magic
Los Angeles Clippers

 

Similar to The Economists “Country of the Year,” the CCNTOTYA is not decided by the team with the best record or most glamorous statistics. If it was, Golden State would be the award winners each year, and not to brag, but the CornerCube likes to believe its award choosing is more unpredictable than the NBA Playoffs (i.e. it’s not a given that Golden State will win every year). Further, CornerCube does not like to relate to “rogue teams.” In this case Golden State is the closest team to, say, a rogue state. In other words, Golden State is the China of the NBA. After Golden State’s historic 2016 season in which they won the most regular season games in the history of the NBA but lost to Lebron James and his Cavaliers in the finals, Golden State resorted to buying talent to defeat Lebron. Golden State, even with its record breaking team, was unable to defeat the greatest player in the NBA. So they decided to woo an NBA MVP, Kevin Durant, away from his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, to create a “mega team” in the Bay Area. Golden State is therefore like China, a country praised for its “innovation and economic winnings” but in reality, uses aggressive and ruthless trade tactics to acquire foreign trade secrets and technologies. Hence, because the CornerCube believes in the rules of a liberal world order and free trade, it will not stand to congratulate Golden State for its deplorable winning tactics.

 

Milwaukee, Toronto, and Philadelphia are all eliminated from contention. Not because they are bad actors but because what they have done this year is expected and has been routine. For instance, Toronto has been in the playoffs since the 2013/2014 season and has been ranked as either the Eastern Conference’s first seed or second seed in three of their last four playoff appearances. The Philadelphia 76ers have become dominant after years of “tanking”, but again they have managed to grab the same seed in the playoffs as they did last year – third seed. The CornerCube will admit that they are pleased to see Milwaukee, a Midwestern team, hold the highest seed in the Eastern Conference, but like Toronto and Philadelphia, this wasn’t a surprise. These teams each met expectations, but none of them exceeded expectations.

 

2019 CCNTOTYA Finalists
Western Conference	Eastern Conference
Golden State Warriors	Milwaukee Bucks
Denver Nuggets	Toronto Raptors
Portland Trailblazers	Philadelphia 76ers
Houston Rockets	Boston Celtics
Utah Jazz	Indiana Pacers
Oklahoma City Thunder	Brooklyn Nets
San Antonio Spurs	Orlando Magic
Los Angeles Clippers

 

 

Next are the teams who failed to live up to expectations either due to injuries or disgruntlements within the locker room. Boston, for all intents and purposes, was thought to be a one seed in the Eastern Conference, but after head scratching losses, poor production at times out of their star rookie from last year, Jayson Tatum, and Kyrie Irving’s injuries/drama, they fell all the way to the fourth seed in the East. Furthermore, the psychological blunder that the team had endured after the media speculated that Boston could deal several of its young stars for New Orleans’ prime center, Anthony Davis, is also a culprit to their surprising losses. Houston, a team a year ago just one game from going to the finals, now finds itself at the four seed as well.  Although they have James Harden, who again will be named the league’s MVP, it seems that is all they are going to be remembered for. Chris Paul, their aging point guard, and Clint Capella, their star center, both have battled injuries this year and it was only thanks to James Harden that they were able to cling to the seed they are in now. Finally, Oklahoma City Thunder is a team who always seems to be a threat, but of late, gets eliminated quickly from the playoffs. It is remarkable how they are able to capture primetime TV coverage throughout the regular season.  This may be due to their outspoken and eccentric point guard, Russell Westbrook, more so than their actual play on the court. These teams this year have created a lot of noise and received a lot of coverage, but that might be all they are able create.

 

2019 CCNTOTYA Finalists
Western Conference	Eastern Conference
Golden State Warriors	Milwaukee Bucks
Denver Nuggets	Toronto Raptors
Portland Trailblazers	Philadelphia 76ers
Houston Rockets	Boston Celtics
Utah Jazz	Indiana Pacers
Oklahoma City Thunder	Brooklyn Nets
San Antonio Spurs	Orlando Magic
Los Angeles Clippers

 

 

The Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Clippers should be applauded for making the playoffs but that is all they should be applauded for. Although Orlando Magic, since Dwight Howard left, has been nearing NBA obscurity, they managed to win a division that only consisted of one team with a winning record – themselves. The Southeast division is comprised of the Washington Wizards, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets and Orlando Magic. This division was so bad that the people at CornerCube had to look up which teams were even in that division. The same could be said for the Los Angeles Clippers who play in the Pacific Division. Now although the Clippers play in the same division as Golden State, that may be the only team they play in their division, as the Clippers and Golden State were the only two team from the Pacific division to muster a winning regular season record. However, as an aside, the Clippers head coach, Doc Rivers, should be given a lot of credibility for managing to get his team a winning record, considering their roster is mediocre.

 

The Portland Trailblazers, San Antonio Spurs, and Utah Jazz have become, what will be named as “filler” for the Western Conference playoff bracket. In other words, they are there to give the fans some excitement but for the most part they probably won’t muster anything past the second round. Each of these teams might make it close with the team they are going against, but none of them are legitimate contenders to make it to the finals, nor have either of them gone above expectations. San Antonio does deserve praise for dealing with the drama that Kawhi Leonard put them through and came out on top with the trade for Toronto’s All-Star, Demar DeRozan. However, San Antonio found itself again in the seventh seed. The Portland Trail Blazers did manage to win a playoff game this year, and thus avoided being swept in the first round like they have done in the two previous years. However, winning a game in the playoff series is not grounds for receiving the CCNTOTYA. Both teams are threats to make the playoffs interesting but it may just last for a series. The Utah Jazz made a splash last year by making the playoffs with their rookie, Donovan Mitchell. If the CCNTOTYA was around last year, this team would have received it. However, the award wasn’t around and the Jazz have mustered to receive the Western Conference’s fifth seed for the third season in a row. Although consistency is a hard skill to replicate, it is not enough to earn the CCNTOTYA.

 

2019 CCNTOTYA Finalists
Western Conference	Eastern Conference
Golden State Warriors	Milwaukee Bucks
Denver Nuggets	Toronto Raptors
Portland Trailblazers	Philadelphia 76ers
Houston Rockets	Boston Celtics
Utah Jazz	Indiana Pacers
Oklahoma City Thunder	Brooklyn Nets
San Antonio Spurs	Orlando Magic
Los Angeles Clippers

 

 

Now it is down to the three finalists – Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and Brooklyn Nets. Each of these three teams have not been on prime-time TV as much as they probably should have been. The Indiana Pacers are a team that took the 2018 Lebron led Cavs to a game seven of the opening round of the playoffs, but lost. Further, although the Pacers have again landed the fifth seed, like they did last year, they did it without their only “nationally recognizable” player – Victor Oladipo (who was also their only all-star selection). This deserves accolades, as most people wrote the Pacers off as soon as he ruptured his quad tendon. No one deserves the praise more than their head coach, Nate McMillan, as he seems to not be afraid to coach his team. This is a rarity in a league in which the players run most teams and also the league as well. Finally, the Pacers can credit their ability to win in another phase of the NBA that is a rarity – a willingness to play good defense. The Pacers finished the year as the third best defense. With all the adversity that the Pacers overcame, it is hard not to think that their brilliance may be due more to the fact that Lebron has left their division, than their actual team’s skill. They are a team that no one wants to play in the post-season, but, as history has shown, a team that lacks an all-star on its floor doesn’t usually stand a chance to win a championship. Further, the Pacers deserve praise for continuing to win without Oladipo.  But the fact that they finished in the same spot as last year, begs the question whether Oladipo was really that big of a boost.

 

The Denver Nuggets are a team that snuck up on the entire NBA. Led by their All-Star Serbian Center, Nikola Jokic and their point guard, Jamal Murray the Nuggets managed to earn the second seed in the Western Conference and had a shot at the first seed too. This team lacks the name recognition that Houston, Golden State, or even Oklahoma City might garner, but they are no team to discount. Mike Malone, the head coach, has improved this team from a winning percentage of 34%, back in 2013/2014, and has progressively gotten the team better each year since. In 2018 the team held a winning percentage of 65.9%. They are sixth best offense and the tenth best defense in the league and that is respectable considering they play in the NBA’s tougher conference – Western Conference. Although the Denver Nuggets went from missing the playoffs the previous year to being the second seed, it should not be ignored that Denver only missed the 2017/2018 playoffs in failing to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves in the last game of the regular season. Their vast improvement is respectable but not surprising. Their accomplishments should not go unnoticed but they will finish as the first CCNTOTYA runner-up. Congratulations.

 

As much as the CornerCube hates to boost up the ego any more than New York City needs it to be boosted already, the first ever CCNTOTYA goes to the Brooklyn Nets. An obscure franchise that was for a while best known for its minority owner, and rapper, Jay-Z, than for any talent they produced on the court. The Nets also were known for being on, what now looks to be, the losing end of the worst trade in NBA history. Not only did the Nets give up three unprotected first-round picks, in 2013, for aging Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry, but they also gave up their future to their division rival – Boston Celtics. Now the Celtics look to be a young fresh team and the credit goes to the Nets back in 2013 for providing an infusion of youth and talent to the Celtics. In turn, the fact that the Nets were able to jump from finishing, in 2017/2018, 12^th in the Eastern Conference to finishing, this year, as the six seed is respectable and ahead of schedule. Further, not only are the Nets back to relevance but so is D’Angelo Russell, a former first overall pick by the Lakers back in 2015, who is now looking like, well, a first overall pick. Russell made the NBA All-Star team this year. In addition, the team has won with not only the help from Russell, but the likes of Ed Davis, Joe Harris, Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert. Finally, and what is most inspiring is the Nets made this turnaround without having to “tank” in previous seasons (unlike the team they are playing now in the playoffs – Philadelphia 76ers). Rather because of the trade in 2013 the Nets were forced into developing a team through pure acumen and strategy rather than “tanking and picking.” Now Brooklyn looks to be a destination for a possible premier All-Star, especially with the young talent like Russell, LeVert, and Allen who will only get better in the years to come. Congratulations to the Brooklyn Nets for being the 2018/2019 CornerCube NBA Team of The Year Award recipients!

 

2019 CCNTOTYA Finalists
Western Conference	Eastern Conference
Golden State Warriors	Milwaukee Bucks
Denver Nuggets	Toronto Raptors
Portland Trailblazers	Philadelphia 76ers
Houston Rockets	Boston Celtics
Utah Jazz	Indiana Pacers
Oklahoma City Thunder	Brooklyn Nets
San Antonio Spurs	Orlando Magic
Los Angeles Clippers

Field of Cash: Baseball Has Been Relegated to the Rich

The annual debut of Major League Baseball (MLB) came and went with as much lackluster fury as was found in this year’s Major League Baseball free agency. This year’s prized free agents were Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.  Prized or not, their associated “bidding wars” were practically not only nonexistent, but due to their prolongment, almost forgotten.  Finally, their signings, once they finally did happen, were anti-climactic. Like its free agency, baseball’s opening week would start and end with the same level of tedium. By the end of the week, talking heads weren’t discussing who they think will win the World Series as much as they were discussing how to keep the World Series, well, alive.

If the saying “bad publicity is good publicity” holds any truth then Major League Baseball isn’t lacking for publicity. The Cincinnati Reds were able to break their record low, in terms of attendance, at their 17-year-old Great American Ballpark in just their third game of this year’s campaign. According to Dave Jablonski of the Dayton Daily News, “[t]he announced attendance was 7,799. The previous low was 9,087 in 2009.” Although being early April in Cincinnati, the weather may have played a role in deterring fans from coming out to the game. However, that is no excuse for the Toronto Blue Jays, who play in a dome, from managing to reach a decade low in attendance.

Granted, both the Reds and Blue Jays are not, currently, premier baseball teams and neither is picked to win their divisions. Still the Los Angeles Dodgers have won the National League Pennant in the past two years, yet they may start see dwindling crowds as well. Houston Mitchell from the LA Times reports, “Here’s the problem the Dodgers have: A lot of people feel unsafe going to Dodger Stadium.” Mitchell writes this after a man was assaulted as he departed Dodger Stadium following their loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 29.  The victim was put on life support with a fractured skull. In the American League, on April 1^st, the Cleveland Indians, the reigning AL Central Division Champions, started their home opener off with a protest. The protests were not in angst against the Cleveland Indians logo, which is no longer in use starting this season, but rather about the Indians needing to change their team name.

There are three factors that Major League Baseball must solve to avoid the same fate as American department stores – once prominent statures of American society left to wither away on the surfaces of vacant parking lots.

First, the MLB must somehow help its stars gain popular awareness. Currently, the most well-known Major League Baseball stars aren’t familiar to the average American. In the NFL, quarterbacks are well known both to football fans and non-football fans alike. In nearly each NFL division, not just conference, there are nationally recognized stars – mainly quarterbacks. Average Americans know who Ben Roethlisberger is, even if they never watched him play. However, ask these same Americans who Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, or John Lester is and it’s like asking an average American who the starting left guard on the Patriots is. That’s baseball’s issue - its big-name stars have the same level of national familiarity as that of an offensive lineman in the NFL. The difficult aspect of a player’s “brand” awareness is the level of impact or lack thereof that individual hitters may have on a team.

Take for example all the accolades that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (say that ten times fast) outfielder, Mike Trout, has received and yet he and his team lack any sort of deep postseason run. Trout’s Angeles made the postseason once in 2014 and were promptly swept. That’s not good. To have a player who is a 2x American League MVP, and a 7x All-Star never have a playoff win, let alone win a playoff series, is terrible for the brand of baseball. Trout, for all his accolades, is a hampered baseball ambassador because he isn’t around when most people tune into baseball – during the playoffs.

The second issue, and one that is harder to fix, is the fact that the game of baseball is long and, at times, dull. To the enamored fan, baseball is layered with strategy. But to the average person, it is nothing more than a lot of winding up, throwing, and maybe once in a while, a hit. Whereas football and basketball have constant motion, constant action. Even on a one yard running back handoff, there is more action than in three innings of baseball. In other words, it is easy to watch football because there is always something going on. It is sad to state but war sells in America. Why else would people spend money going to see war movies or spend money playing warlike video games? It’s because for some reason war is entertaining to the average person and that’s what football brings to the table. Football is the “battle on the gridiron” and baseball just isn’t.

Now Major League Baseball has started to create initiatives to speed up the game. This season the time between innings, regarding commercial breaks, has decreased for locally televised games from 2:05 minutes to 2:00 and will decrease from 2:45 minutes to 2:25 for nationally televised games. Mound visits have also been reduced from six a game to five. Finally, in 2020, all pitchers must face at least three batters before they may be switched, unless that pitcher incurs an injury before facing three batters. This rule is to help reduce the amount of times a pitcher comes into a game for a certain situation and reduces the time of the game. Although the most controversial rule proposal, the pitch clock, has not yet been instituted, the MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, said “the clock is coming to the majors soon.”

But will the pace of play rule changes have any effect on gaining more baseball viewers? It seems unlikely. The average NFL game is actually longer than the average MLB game and yet the NFL’s viewership has been growing. In Aaron Gordon’s Sportsonearth.com piece, “baseball games average 2 hours and 57 minutes and 33 seconds.” The average NFL game takes 3 hours 10 minutes and 34 seconds. There is also the very fact that although a baseball game takes a smaller amount of time to complete than a football game, football season is far shorter than baseball season. The NFL regular season is a measly 16 games, which are usually played on Sundays, whereas an MLB regular season consists of 162 games all scattered throughout the week. In short, pace of play is not baseball’s issue as much as one might think.

The issue with baseball is that it is a game that was prized as America’s “past time” because everyone, boys and girls, played it. However, now with the onslaught of so many more organized sports and entertainment options, baseball gets lost in the mix.  What was once an American rite of passage – neighborhood kids playing baseball at their local park - is becoming a piece of Americana nostalgia. The issue with baseball is more an issue with the need for kids to find hobbies that they “must” excel at. The casual for fun hobby is becoming bygone. Marc Fisher, of the Washington Post, wrote, “David Ogden, a University of Nebraska at Omaha researcher who focuses on youth baseball, says selective teams produce better-trained players for high school and college teams but diminish baseball's appeal to the casual player. The high cost — about $2,000 a year in many cases — limits opportunities for lower-income families, and the high level of play leaves more broad-based organizations such as Little League and YMCA teams with ‘a lot of kids who can't get the ball over the plate, so the game is less fun and kids drop out,’ Ogden says.”

In other words, baseball, at the youth age, is taking the egalitarian aspect of baseball away. In its place   ushers in not necessarily “the most skilled players” but those players whose parents can afford the high costs to play youth baseball. In Shane Thomas’ RegalMag.com article, which sources the “Chicago Tribune,” states that these rich parents start to try and keep up with each other, which increases the cost of baseball for everyone else. “To keep up with the cream of the crop, extra training is necessary with private pitching or hitting coaches outside of team practices, running a player at least $40 a pop once or twice a week.  A quality baseball glove can cost up to $100 or more, aluminum bats run into the hundreds of dollars and name-brand cleats start around $150.”

What was once the sport my grandparents relished is now a sport that is economically in the same realm as golf, hockey, and lacrosse. Baseball was once a sport that kids would play in local neighborhood leagues, at grassy fielded municipal parks or even backyards. Now, with the extent of hyperactive rich parents increasing the pressure on their sons/daughters to be the next Mickey Mantle, it decreases the chances of an average middle/low class American having the ability to taste what was once a genuinely egalitarian and pure American past time. Baseball was so great because it was never as physically selective as, say, football or basketball. Unlike basketball, it’s okay not to be the tallest player on a baseball team; unlike football, being a behemoth of a man isn’t required.  Baseball in America today is being sucked into the modern gilded age.  What is  now required to play baseball isn’t as much a bat and glove as it is the depth of your parents’ pockets. Baseball is an entirely American sport, and it is dealing with an entirely American problem.

A Uniquely Stupid Man - Mike Brown

If Jerry Jones is the most outspoken NFL owner, then Mike Brown is the most stupid.  At the NFL’s recent annual meetings in Arizona, it appeared that Mike Brown was both acting as though he was Cincinnati’s Moses who would rescue the city from its years of mediocrity, while also lambasting its fans for acting too “spoiled.” It would have been in Brown’s best interest, for once, to do what he has been doing with his football team for the last decade – nothing.

Brown admitted in Paul Dehner Jr.'s article in the Cincinnati Enquirer that the hire of Zac Taylor as the new head coach “was the biggest change in one year in the history of the franchise.” Considering this is Brown’s now eighth head coach since he inherited the title of “Owner of the Bengals” from his late father, it wouldn’t appear that the hiring of a new head coach would constitute the greatest change in the history of the franchise. Then again Brown is eighty-three years old.  Although he is not the oldest owner in the NFL, he does appear to be the one owner who may have the highest probability of being deemed incapacitated.

Now Brown may also believe that the hiring of Taylor is the biggest change in the franchise’s history because, for nearly the past two decades, Brown has been comfortable putting a bag over his head and letting Marvin Lewis run full roughshod with the organization. What caused Brown to “part ways” with Lewis is a bit of mystery. If it was because of Lewis’ third consecutive year of lackluster seasons, then it would have seemed plausible that Lewis would have been let go after the 2008 campaign in which the Bengals, for the third straight year, failed to muster a winning season. On the other hand, it may be that Brown set, like his team in recent years, mediocre goals. For instance, the only reason for which it appears Brown never made a head coaching change was that in nearly half of Lewis’ campaigns he made the playoffs, and five of those appearances happened from 2011 thru 2015. However, under Lewis, the Bengals would only ever be able to accomplish “playoff appearances.” Playoff appearances and no wins is a recipe for a head coach termination. John Fox, the head coach of the Denver Broncos from 2011 thru 2014, made the playoffs in each of those years and even made a Super Bowl appearance. In spite of Fox’s ability to make the playoffs in each of these seasons, he was terminated from the Broncos after a “disappointing” season in which the Broncos lost in the Divisional Round of the 2014 playoffs. If Brown disregards this example, then he may want to take a look at Norv Turner’s tenure with the San Diego Chargers from 2007 thru 2012. In Turner’s first three years, he made the playoffs and in his very first year he made it to the AFC Championship game. However, Turner would be fired after the 2012 season because he had three consecutive seasons of missing the playoffs, not three consecutive losing seasons.  If Lewis recorded the same record in his last three years as what Turner recorded in his, then Brown would probably be giving Lewis another ten-year extension.

At the annual meeting, Brown would later tell reporters that “[the Bengals] have gone through a tremendous revival.” This may be Brown’s senile mind escaping his mouth again because in all likelihood the Bengals, at least this season, won’t have a revival. First history and, yes, science has indicated that coaching changes do not produce better results the year after the coaching change occurred. In Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommer’s book titled, This is Your Brain on Sports, they noted Middle Tennessee State University’s professor’s, Michael Roach, study on the effects of NFL coaching changes. “According to Roach’s model, a team that fired its coach reduced its win total the following year by 0.8 victories. The team’s point differential decreased by 27 points. Its odds of making the playoffs dropped by 12 percent.” Regardless of the merits of this study, on paper it would be hard for one not to have to squint to find the talent on this Bengals roster.

According to ESPN, the Bengals finished the 2018 season as the 26^th best offense in the NFL and the NFL’s worst defense. Of course, the reasoning for the atrocious defense may be a result of injuries but look closer and it may be due to the fact that their best defensive players are nearly a decade into the league. The last defensive pro bowlers the Bengals had were drafted in 2010. In recent years the offensive line has been a liability that fared no better in the 2018 season. According to Pro Football Focus’ rankings, the Bengals finished as the 27^th best offensive line and this takes into account the additions of Cordy Glenn and Billy Price. The failures of the offensive line are what led to “franchise” quarterback Andy Dalton having to be sidelined for the rest of the season after incurring a finger injury in week 12. According to Chris Roling of BengalsWire, it may make financial sense to cut Dalton in the offseason. Combine this with the fact that the lone consistent star on the Bengals, wide receiver AJ Green, is entering the last year of his contract and is turning 31, it would seem logical that Green would want to be on a team that doesn’t have the scent of tanking while he is nearing the twilight of his career. This team has depleted the talent it once had and failed to properly acquire the talent it could have had.

After Mike Brown was done with his self-promotion stint, he then started to take aim at the very people who keep this, to the rest of America, irrelevant franchise, well, relevant – the fans. For instance, Brown went on some tangent about how the fans complain about the concession prices. “[T]hey will say why don’t you do what they do in Atlanta what they do with cheap hot dogs. They have cheap prices, but they charge for tickets about three times what we charge. Which would you rather have?”  I’m not sure what, or even if Brown knows, what he is trying to accomplish with this rhetoric. Considering that the Cincinnati Bengals fans still show up to a team who has routinely underachieved, and the fact that those fans have started a website called, mikebrownsucks.com, it would seem in Brown’s best interest to try and take some interest in his fans.

There are two more remarks that Brown made in his interview with reports while in Arizona. The first was the fact that he admitted that fans were right in wanting change. It may be Brown’s senile mind coming into play, but a first time visitor to a Bengals game could have told you that the fans wanted a head coaching change about five years ago. The very fact that Brown, acting with the same muster as some paternal master over his fans, has to grant the fans a sense of being “right” to want change is a slap in the face to the very people who have been supporting Brown’s livelihood since ’91. The second quote that made my jaw drop was when Brown, with the same sense as a blind man suddenly being able to see, stated, “[i]t is remarkable how fast these problems get resolved if you start winning.” Hopefully every reporter, when recording this statement, suddenly put down their pencils and said in unison, “no duh.” For a man who has owned a team for over a quarter of century, this “idea” should have appeared to be a “no brainer.” The fact that this suddenly came into Brown’s head is the very reason why the Bengals are in the position they are in now – a mess.

P.S. At the annual meeting, the owners voted, 31-1 to allow offensive and defensive pass interference to be subject to a coach’s challenge and review (spurred by the 2018 NFC Championship Game). The lone dissent was none other than the senile Mike Brown. There is a good chance he had no idea what he was voting for.